


but the tigers come at night

by whyyesitscar



Category: Frozen (Disney Movies)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-29
Updated: 2014-05-29
Packaged: 2020-08-11 17:08:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20157103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whyyesitscar/pseuds/whyyesitscar
Summary: When you’re the only one talking, sometimes you have to make up the other side of the conversation. Anna’s always been a good dreamer.





	but the tigers come at night

**Author's Note:**

> title + lyrics from "i dreamed a dream" from les mis

_and still i dream she’ll come to me,_  
_that we will live the years together._  
_but there are dreams that cannot be  
_ _and there are storms we cannot weather._

/

In spite of everything, Anna dreams.

(It is a habit cultivated since childhood and it is impossible to stop—she knows this, yet Anna maintains that dreaming is a choice. Her life is comprised of choices, many of which are not of her own making, and still, in spite of everything, Anna dreams.)

Her father listens to her dreams with a passive ear, shuffling treaties and other boring papers, contributing nothing more than a few noncommittal grunts and an occasional smile when joy becomes impossible to resist. Before she goes to bed, Anna’s mother fills her head with worlds where impossibilities thrive.

(On the other side of the castle there is a closed door that always elicits a shiver. More than anything, Anna dreams that it will open.)

/

Her mother once said that dreams are memories long since forgotten. Anna had laughed at that—_why would anyone forget the kind of things I dream about, Mama_; she asked. Now, a few years later and a few years wiser, Anna wonders if it would have been a kindness.

Anna contemplates her life without dreams, without almost-memories of snowmen and laughing rocks. She wonders—if this is what dreams truly are—why the past keeps visiting her at night when she is powerless to change it. She wonders a lot of things in the fuzzy morning hours, when dreams are slowly turning to shadows; when, previously robust with ideas and colors and hopes, they become wisps in her fingers; Anna wonders why her mind hasn’t chosen better memories to dream about, and then she vows to make new ones as soon as she gets up, just in case today is the day that everything changes.

At the end of the day, every day, Anna decides that dreams cannot be forgotten memories because she has not truly forgotten them; and every night, Anna dreams.

/

(There is a room. It has no walls and it does not end, but Anna knows that she cannot leave. Elsa sits in the center; the floor shimmers beneath her, catching in the light the way ice can blind you in the sun. Anna cannot look at her for too long, but she sits next to her anyway.

“Tea?” Elsa asks, and Anna knows that it’s actually hot cocoa. She nods.

Elsa pours her a cup and sprinkles some sugar on top. Snow falls from her spoon.

Somewhere to her left, a dull knock thuds against something hard. Anna feels it reverberate through her chest though it does not echo.

“Did you hear that?” she whispers.

Elsa sips her tea. _Cocoa_, Anna corrects, shaking her head.

The knock sounds again. This time Anna ignores it.

“Aren’t you going to get the door?” Elsa asks. Her mouth doesn’t move. Anna hears a smile in her voice.

“Elsa, there aren’t any doors.”

“Yes, there are. Just open it.”

“I can’t.”

“Yes, you can.”

“How can I open what I can’t see?”

“Look harder; it’s over there.”

Elsa waves her hand; snowflakes glisten for as far as Anna can see. Anna blinks for hours.

“Elsa—”

“Open it, Anna. It isn’t locked.”

“It isn’t _anything_.”

“Open it.”

“No.”

“Open it.”

“No.”

“Open it.”

“You open it!”

Anna wakes up.)

/

“…and I didn’t even know a turtle would sound like that; can you imagine? I mean, not that I know what turtles really sound like anyway, or not that I know that turtles make sounds at all—but they’ve got to make sounds, right; everything makes sounds—but I definitely didn’t think turtles would make _that_ sound. Do you think, somewhere, there’s a turtle dreaming about an awkward girl with auburn hair? I hope she has a better laugh than I do.”

Anna leans against the wall and draws her knees to her chest.

“Mama and Papa are away on important kingdom matters or something, so it’s just you and me for a few days. Well, and the cooks. And the maids. Also the butlers. It’s pretty much just you and me though. I thought—well, I thought you maybe you might want to…come out of your room? I don’t know why you’re in there, but maybe it’s because you’ll get in trouble if you’re not, and there isn’t anyone to get you in trouble right now. We don’t even have to go anywhere; we could just stay in the hallway. It’s a pretty great hallway. I mean, I should know; I’ve spent a lot of time here.” She blushes. “I mean, not that that’s your fault or anything. But this is the kind of hallway that’s meant to be shared. You know, if you want to.”

The grandfather clock ticks and Elsa is silent; it tocks, and so is Anna.

“Elsa?” she ventures. “Do you dream, about things? About anything.”

The door is closed and as Anna pushes against it (just in case), she finds that it is also locked, exactly the way it always is.

She sits and she waits, and as she dips into sleep, Anna dreams she hears something scratch against the wood.


End file.
